#
# Introduction to nic.funet.fi archive
#
# Status: Update in progress
# Author: staff of ftp.funet.fi
# Created: Sat Aug 22 20:31:58 1992
# Last modified: 2016-08-18
#
Welcome to FTP.FUNET.FI aka NIC.FUNET.FI
This is a Dell R710 server with 72GB of RAM and dual Quad-Core Nehalem
EP processors (Intel Xeon E5540) giving 16 CPU threads. Storage is
provided via fibre channel connections to the CSC Storage Area
Network. Currently it has 20TB from CSC's Storage Area Network
infrastructure for ZFS storage and it can be extended on the fly if
required.
Operating system is Solaris 10 Unix from Sun Microsystems. We have a
10Gbit/s dedicated connection to Funet which connects at 10Gbit/s level
to academic backbone networks like GEANT and Internet 2 through a nordic
dark fibre network and of course inside Finland.
This system is owned by the finnish ministry of education
and operated on their behalf by CSC primarily for the Finnish Academic
and Research Network FUNET users. It is located in the town of Espoo
in Finland.
Paper mail address:
NIC.FUNET.FI coordinator
Harri Salminen
CSC
POBOX 405 (street address is Keilaranta 14)
FIN-02101 Espoo
FINLAND
This server group has many names. Its "staff" will always be
at `nic.funet.fi', but othervice consider using philosophy: `name by
function', thus FTP from ftp.funet.fi.
ftp.funet.fi traditional anonymous ftp service (also with http and IPv6 support)
www.nic.funet.fi http access to our collections (shows index.html's if any)
nic.funet.fi email and other administrative tasks (in practice ftp
is also supported)
We have also several other names and may move some services to other
computers as we see necessary.
CONTENTS:
- Intro
- What is considered proper conduct of anonymous FTP usage
- Privacy issues
- Contacts about material in here
( GIFs and others )
- Uploading
- CD-ROMs
- FTPD sources
- Reporting a bug/problems
- Physical disk structure is hidden behind logical one
- Restrictions
- Minimum of maximum retrieval rate
- IP-reversal and valid "passwd" requirements
- What is `Freely distributable' ?
- Other services available from here
- Many names of the server
INTRO:
This system has plenty of freely distributable material on its FTPable
areas. We have also other services, see at the end of this document for
pointers.
If you have any questions regarding MATERIALS in this archive, read
first `Contacts about material in here' below. If you can't locate correct
person/mail alias with it, try `problems@nic.funet.fi', but do not do that
as your only attempt!
WHAT IS CONSIDERED A PROPER CONDUCT OF ANONYMOUS FTP USAGE:
Like many systems world wide, ours offers anonymous logins for
FTP users. Such a service means:
- You do not need to apply an account at this server, just use
well known userid: anonymous (or ftp) and for a password please
do enter your email address (in format: your_userid@your_site)
according to the convention used since the 1970s in public FTP servers.
- While this service is called "anonymous" due to that well-known
userid, it is considered good manners to identify yourself
properly. (No, this is not truly anonymous.)
(See PRIVACY ISSUES)
For those who have this privilege of using ftp, here are some do's
and don'ts:
- When you are working over long distance links, do limit yourself
to off hours. When working between the USA and Finland, try it
after 4 PM OUR time ( 10 AM Eastern USA time.) And remember that
we wake up 10 hours before California.
We are at time zone `UTC +2h' and in summer 'UTC +3h'
- Major portion material in this archive originates from various
locations all over USA. Sometimes those locations are well
known. Often not. We try to indicate origins if we know them.
DO try to use server nearest (network wise) to yourself, USA
folks: please restrain yourself to USA.
- When you log in anonymous, system immediately identifies you, and
if you are not limited by number of users, you are
prompted with:
331 Any password will work
Alternatively, read the man-page of ftp-program (assuming you
are using UNIX ftp client), and see what is said about ".netrc".
- See below more about what is `Freely Distributable'.
After all, it is not always the same as Public Domain!
- Don't do many parallel downloads, it will slow down the
service for others and eventually even you. There's a maximum limit
on simultaneous connections for FTP which is shown when you log in.
For HTTP we have had to limit the maximum connections from one
IP to 10.
- REMEMBER: USING ANONYMOUS FTP IS A PRIVILEGE. DON'T ABUSE IT!
PRIVACY ISSUES
All file accesses, logins etc. are logged, and the logs are kept
for indefinite period of time pending disk space availability (months online,
years offline.) to satisfy statistical and legislative requirements.
If you want to be totally unknown, you must not use FTP, as it can
never be used without revealing the IP address of your FTP client.
Even if you had a firewall or proxy somewhere in between, they often
keep track who's using them. In any case we don't collect email
addresses for spammers and we might use them only in exceptional cases
ourselves. For statistics we use the domain part of your hostname,
not the hostname itself which in practice means organization and
country level statistics which we need to maintain the service and
it's funding. Please try to keep your reverse DNS working, especially
if you are under .fi domain since we will try to give preference to
finnish users in case we will someday again have to impose domain
based speed restrictions on the service like in the early days of the
Internet.
CONTACTS ABOUT MATERIAL IN HERE:
Example: An alias "xyz-adm" is to be addressed as
"xyz-adm@nic.funet.fi", please don't use HTML email or something else
that might be interpreted as SPAM by our filters. Plain old english or
finnish text is the best! Please note, that many of the old /pub
areas are not actively maintained and most of the content is actually
automatically updated from a master site which you should be able to
deduce from the /pub/mirrors/some.site/ directory path.
Alias Area Description
=============================================================================
astro-adm pub/astro/ (amateur) Astronomy related material
csc-adm pub/csc/ Centre for Scientific Computing, FI
cpan-adm pub/CPAN/ Comprehensive Perl Archive Network
gnu-adm pub/gnu/ GNU material
linux-adm pub/Linux/ Linux
sci-adm pub/sci/ Scientific information in general
unix-adm pub/unix/ UN*X software etc.
Specials
========
mirror-adm Generic mirror maintenance if you don't know exactly
who or which area managers are responsible for the mirror. (hint all in /pub/mirrors are at least mirrors...)
Please check first the master site in case they have the same issue too,
we just try to mirror them sometimes with some exclusions to save space.
problems FTP server software problem reporting address.
You can use it also if you can't otherwise get
in contact with the appropriate area managers
managers Everything archive related, which isn't proper
for area maintainers or doesn't have an area manager
and thus goes to the general the system managers and coordinators.
If you can logon (anonymously) and read this file, you probably
do not have problems with your/our ftp software, therefore you should
contact above mentioned area administrators.
If you don't find suitable alias to approach, try:
managers at ftp.funet.fi
UPLOADING:
If you want to upload or contribute some files for
publication, please contact appropriate area maintainers for
more information. Be prepared to proof your identity, the origin
of the content and permissions required for distributing the content.
If an area is no longer actively maintained, we don't normally accept
new contributions unless there's a good reason and clear documentation.
Those areas are mainly preserved for their possible historical value.
Most of the active content is originating from some other site, please
contact them, not us for contributions. E.g. if pwd says that in the
path is a directory /mirrors/ then it's clearly not originating from us.
Name of the mirror origin can usually be deduced from the directory
name under /pub/mirrors/
If you still can't figure out what to do you can contact
with all relevant informations concerning your case.
CD-ROMs
Every now and then we are asked for a CD-ROM of this archive; so far
there are none available with the exception of the Euroscene 1 collection
based on part of the Amiga area. We don't expect many exceptions...
Reasons for this are multiple, not the least of them being our
unwillingess to do the effort of publishing such a set. Arranging the
publishing on this kind of directly government funded system is not so
easy in legal wise when it comes to direct money making as of selling
those CD-ROMs... Also it doesn't too well fit to our main business
idea of providing all the WAN network services the Academic and
Research community needs. The whole archive on CD-ROM would take
thousands of CD-ROMs and require lots of manpower to figure out what
should or shouldn't be on each cd-rom and how to finance it. We are a
network service provider, not a cd-rom store.
Some software collections are available commercially, with technical
support, on CD-ROM from other sources (e.g. most Linux distributions). That
may even be a major revenue source for maintaining those collections
so they might not even allow cd-rom versions by others. Some other
collections however are specifically available as CD-ROM images (.iso)
that you can burn yourself and even distribute according to their
copyright statements. So please read the fine print before
redistributing collections available from us.
FTPD SOURCES:
For a simple to maintain ftp server, you might want to
look at www.pureftpd.org, we have used it successfully in several
different places. Another Very Secure choice might be vsftpd
available from http://vsftpd.beasts.org that is being used by many large
sites.
REPORTING A BUG:
If you observe odd behaviour of this server, which is not of what you
believe to be correct, please contact problems@ftp.funet.fi and in the
report have attached a session log which shows the wrong functionality.
However, check at first what we state about "Restrictions" below!
Such log should start from your FTP session startup, and it should contain:
- Descriptions about your (computing-) environment relevant
with attempted FTP access;
- Maker and model of the computer where you ran your
FTP session,
- TCP/IP software model and maker (quite many system do
not come with builtin TCP/IP -- VMS-machines are one
such example.)
- UNEDITED (verbose, unabridged) session transcript showing
EVERYTHING you sent to this system, and what were the responses.
Note: Reports about corrupted files belong to archive area keepers; they
handle those files; "problems" handles the server subsystem.
Bugs/problems relating to ARCHIVED MATERIAL:
Select by list under: `Contacts about material in here'
Bugs/problems relating to other parts of system software:
Problems group:
("system software" does not mean anything under /pub/")
If you can get /README without trouble, don't contact ,
but one of earlier mentioned area administration aliases.
WHAT IS `FREELY DISTRIBUTABLE' ?
Freely distributable does not mean the same thing as PD
(public domain). A big portion of the software available here is not
in the public domain, although it is freely distributable. Many are
copyrighted by some person or organization, but can be distributed
freely; there may be limitations on the manner of distribution and/or
the usage of the programs. There may also be certain rules concerning
the distribution of modified versions (derivate work) of the programs,
like saying that if you redistribute a modified version you must
include in the distribution the date and author of the modification.
Also on many programs you must include a note crediting the original
author of the program if you use his code in your own programs.
An example of this is the Free Software Foundation's GNU
software. GNU software may be distributed freely, provided that the
sources are included, an offer to distribute the sources is included
or that a pointer to where the sources can be gotten from is included.
On FTP.FUNET.FI, all the GNU source code published is available from
the directory pub/gnu. Some GNU binaries are available from other
directories as well; although we have tried to include a pointer to
the sources and the copyright information in these other directories,
too, it might be that we have neglected some. This note is here to
point you to the sources in pub/gnu. For further information, the
GNU copyright is in the file pub/gnu/COPYING.
We have multiple filesystems that are all mounted via mountpoints under
the /.m/ directory. We may move mirrors and other directories from
one filesystem to another without notice, so please refer to our directories
with the official /pub/ or /index/ path instead of the physical /.m they
map to and might be shown to you by various user agents. Especially all
/.m/mirror*/ filesystems are all symlinked via the /pub/mirrors/ directory
and the subdirectories try to match those on the original site.
A very concise history of NIC
=============================
1988 Finland gets it's first internet link of 56Kbit/s via the NORDUnet co-operation and major part of the traffic was from FTP
1989 Funet saw a need for a FTP-server that would allow better access to the internet content (web was still a dream)
from Finland. Decision to set up NIC.FUNET.FI was made and Request for Proposals sent out
1990 First NIC.FUNET.FI, a SUN 4/330, with dual 40Mhz SPARC processors, 128MB RAM and 6GB of usable
disk space which made it then among the largest FTP servers in the Internet.
Our international internet connectivity for whole Funet was 64Kbit/s so mea develops an ftpd with speed limits
More hardware details are available in /pub/files/Historical/staff-docs/historical/First-NIC-Hardware.txt
1991 Linus Torvalds offered a small OS for public distribution which our volunteer
Ari Lemmke decided to call Linux and the name stuck... International connection was upgraded to 128Kbit/s
1992 We had about 20GB of external disks and a motherboard upgrade making it in practice a SUN 630-41 MP
International connectivity was upgraded to 1Mbit/s
1994 Second NIC with 275Mhz Alpha processor, 320MB of memory and 100GB+ disk space (DEC AXP3000-900)
International connection for Funet upgraded to 2 x 2Mbit/s
1999 Third NIC with four processors and 4GB of memory (a SUN 450) was taken in use.
Under 1TB made from well over hunred old and new disks in two RAID racks (DEC and Eurologic)
International connections used 155Mbit/s links with redundancy
2003 A user survey to determine whether users still need NIC is made with an encouraging response
2006 The fourth version of NIC from Fujitsu-Siemens Computers with 16GB of memory and four processors
is taken into production initially with 3TB+ EMC CX300 SAN storage array. A SUN V240 is in a support role.
2.5Gbit/s and 10Gbit/s international links
2007 5-6 TB SAN storage added. Dark fibers with support for many lightpaths deployed in the Funet backbone.
2010 Fifth version of NIC, a Dell R710, with dual Quad-Core Nehalem EP (2,53Ghz Intel Xeon 5540) processors,
72GB of RAM and storage from the CSC storage area network (initially 10TB+ from a EMC CX700)
taken into use under Solaris 10 and the ZFS filesystem. Network connection is now
10Gbit/s to the Funet backbone and multiples of 10Gbit/s to the rest of the Internet.
More historical pieces of information can be found in various files around NIC and especially a more
generic Internet-history in a concise web format at http://www.nic.funet.fi/index/FUNET/history/internet/
There's also a more verbose article of NIC now and then at the CSCnews 3/06 available at
https://web.archive.org/web/20070107152338/http://www.csc.fi/csc/julkaisut/CSCnews/Edelliset_numerot/CSCnews3_2006